Global Warming's Gathering Storm
My insurance company and I just had a little "brush" with global warming.

It wasn't pretty.

I was driving my son to his karate class and noticed that the sky in the west where we were heading was incredibly dark. Since the sun was setting in that direction, the darkness of the clouds was particularly ominous.

I switched on the radio and heard an alert about severe thunderstorms in a broad front that was moving quickly across the eastern U.S. from Virginia up into New York.

At that point, the lightning began in the distance: huge bolts, in rapid succession. Then large drops of rain and hail the size of nickels began to pelt the car, and a severe wind began whipping the trees that lined the road and that stretched over us.

I had just decided that visibility was deteriorating to the point that I should slow down, when a tree fell from the left side of the road right across the street in front of my path. I barely had time to swerve to the right, missing the most substantial part of the trunk, but driving right over the mass of branches in front of me. There was a loud bang of something hitting the left side of my van and a lot of thumping as the wheels bounced over the branches.

Shaken, I pulled over to the side of the road and got out. My door popped as I opened it. Clearly the front end had been pushed back into the door. I also saw that a branch had hit my left mirror, shattering the glass, which I later learned had sprayed in tiny pieces through the open window of the car. Luckily, no major damage had occurred, and no injuries and I continued on. The next five miles were littered with fallen trees, many of them much larger than the one that had landed in front of me. It looked like a tornado had passed through, but it turned out later that the damage was much more widespread than a tornado. On our 15-mile return ride home, we had to search out alternate routes several times because so many roads were closed by fallen trees. All the traffic signals were out, because of downed lines.

This had been your garden-variety storm.

Our region had just gone through a record heat wave, with a week of temperatures in the mid to high '90s, with one day nudging into three digits. The summer itself has been the hottest on record.

At the body shop the next day, I learned that it had been a great day for the collision repair industry, but a bad day for the insurance industry. Cars—and houses--all over the tri-county area had been damaged by trees and branches. Our van sustained $1000 in damage.

Now I've lived in the Northeast all my life, and I can state with half a century’s experience that this has been no ordinary summer--and that this was no ordinary storm.

We're clearly experiencing the beginning of something new. Flowers are blooming out of season, some deciduous trees are showing signs of distress, their leaves yellowing in the intense heat. Other plants, like the poison ivy that is engulfing my property, seem to be growing at a pace way beyond what might be expected, the result of much higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.

We're in for it folks.

The world is getting noticeably warmer, and the soaring carbon content in the atmosphere guarantees that it's only going to get worse—much worse.

You'd think that people would get it, that there'd be a national clamor for drastic measures to do something about it, if only for our children and grandchildren, but no. People keep driving too fast, wasting gas, even at $3.20 a gallon. People keep driving half a mile to do an errand instead of walking or riding a bike. People keep buying oversized cars that get half the miles per gallon that a smaller vehicle might get. And people keep cranking up the air cons, making it feel like spring in July in their homes and offices. And in Washington, the political class is worked up about…stem cells and interstate travel by teens seeking legal abortions. How is it that politicians can get in a panic about an alleged Social Security crisis that won’t hit until 2075, but continue to ignore a crisis that is liable to swallow up New York's financial district and half of the Florida peninsula--not to mention Shanghai, most of Bangladesh, and a fair number of Pacific nations--well before that?

That dark cloud I saw last week, and the near-death experience it provided me and my son, was more than just a nasty frontal system. It, and the sweltering summer that has been setting heat records across the U.S., Europe, and much of the northern hemisphere, is a warning that we'd all better start getting serious about a crisis that promises to be as disastrous for the human race as a surprise comet was for the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.

That was probably the same storm which went thru Illinois week a couple of weeks ago after an intense heat wave. It hit about 11 pm. There was little rain, but an incredible amount of heat lightning, like a strobe light, with one continuous roar of thunder. It was surreal. I've never seen anything like it.

Global Warming Hysteria=Morons who thought TDAT was scientific fact
Global Warming Hysteria=Morons who see something ominous in a T-STORM
Global Warming Hysteria=Morons who think hot weather (in the SUMMER!) is an indicator of the end times
Global Warming Hysteria=The latest enviro scare tactic to get Morons to give up their rights
Global Warming Hysteria=What the Establishment mouthpiece (TvNews) wants Morons to believe

Global Warming Hysteria=Morons who thought TDAT was scientific factGlobal Warming Hysteria=Morons who see something ominous in a T-STORM Global Warming Hysteria=Morons who think hot weather (in the SUMMER!) is an indicator of the end timesGlobal Warming Hysteria=The latest enviro scare tactic to get Morons to give up their rightsGlobal Warming Hysteria=What the Establishment mouthpiece (TvNews) wants Morons to believe

This from another thread:

shane7 wrote:

I'll try to stay away from the science part of the arguement;

In that thread, I showed you massive amounts of science which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that global warming is real, and it is caused by humans. You, however, true to your word, did a very good job of ignoring the science.

Once again, I have to say that I suspect you work for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, since you issue a never ending stream of their propaganda.

In case anyone has forgotten, the Competitive Enterprise Institute is funded by Exxon-Mobil and other mega-corporations with a clear agenda to misinform the public about environmental issues. Lately, they have engaged in a massive "Swift Boat" style campaign to discredit Al Gore.

The CEI is also very active in some of the causes which are very near and dear to shane's heart, such as touting the benefits of widespread use of DDT and other toxins, elimination of corporate funding of the Superfund, thus forcing the public to pay for the cleanup of areas destroyed by corporations, and complete privatization of the Endangered Species Act, thus forcing environmental groups and /or private citizens to pay ransom to corporations in order to save endangered species. So, it is understandable that one might mistake shane for a CEI spokesperson.

Take a look at who funds this group of extremist regressive anti-environmentalists.

With more than a $3 million annual budget, CEI is supported by both conservative foundations and corporate funding. Known corporate funders in addition to ExxonMobil include the American Petroleum Institute, Cigna Corporation, Dow Chemical, EBCO Corp, General Motors, and IBM. One of CEI's prominent funders is conservative Richard Scaife who has provided money through the Carthage and Sara Scaife Foundations. CEI is also heavily supported by the various Koch brother foundations.

The temps in my part of the NC mountains reached over 100 yesterday. About 5 pm, a tremendous storm erupted, with heavy lightning and a deluge of rain. Today, it's the same, only with a good breeze blowing.

shaney is very good at repeating Ignore Science 101 and Ignore Evidence 101. In fact, he's the star student!

Catherine

_________________

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

I put this in originally in my Got Heat? thread but it applies here as well...

Quote:

TheStripey1

The climatologists that believe global warming is taking place say that it, global warming, will produce more violent weather... more extremes for longer periods of time.

I have only been a weather fanatic since the big tornado outbreak in 2003, but... since then, I have read countless news articles chronicling this disaster or that, this extreme weather phenomenom or that, and in nearly each one a common observation is uttered...

"I have not seen storms this strong, so consistantly, so long standing, ever."

And that's what happens when the climate starts to change, if you ask me... and even if you didn't... I still think that's what starts to happen... And soon, we will ALL begin to realize that our weather is getting worse... and it's going to get a lot worse... got drought? yes wide spread... got flood? yes and lots of it too... got wildfires? yes, starting sooner and more than usual... got severe weather in August? yes and it's unusual according to the weather EXPERTS on TWC...

got republican denial?

why yes, of course , everything is just peachy to those that continually live with their heads up their asses...

I guess I shouldn't be TOO upset at the general populace's (which you all are CERTAINLY part of) level of ignorance; their is just SO much disinformation out there that the Propaganda Machine (not to mention the PC garbage/propaganda taught in the pathetic gov't-run schools) is throwing at the public--on a daily basis--that only a few, astute, and open-minded citizens will discover the truth. The truth is that there is NOTHING unnatural happening w/the weather. There is NOTHING sinister about 'global climate change'--it has been a constant throughout Earth's existence.

What IS different is what is being REPORTED by the Mainstream Media. When Average Joes (you all) walk by a newsstand and see [Corporate] magazine after [Corporate] magazine and [Corporate] newspaper after [Corporate] newspaper with pictures of the globe on fire and headlines like "IT'S WARMING UP!" and "GLOBAL WARMING'S CONSEQUENCES FOR YOU!"; when they see the same on TV and in the movies, what more can they think but, "Hey, its on the cover of 'Newsweek', in the 'NY Times', on 'CNN', and Al Gore say's its true, so it MUST be the truth! These people wouldn't lie to me, now, would they!?" In short, its not the weather that is changing, it is people's ATTITUDES about it that are changing. You all FEEL that the weather is 'out-of-whack', science, rational thought, and dissenters be damned! This is what happens when people let their EMOTIONS instead of their REASON rule them.

Ever try to argue science with a hardcore Christian? If you haven't, try it. Try and dissuade them w/logic and facts. Know what happens when you ask for proof of God's existence? You get, "Well, why don't YOU prove he DOESN'T exist!?" You all have this exact same mentality when it comes to 'GW'. THAT is why I say I don't care to debate science w/you all. The main difference between you all and Christians? At least they are honest enough to admit it is a RELIGION that they are following; you all don't have the courage OR honesty to admit that your Earth-worship is a RELIGION that you're trying to IMPOSE on the rest of us.

I thought I saw a post but I must have imagined it. Something about people being ignorant and global warming or something of that nature. Must have been one of those Stepford wives again who is so brainwashed they can't make coherent statements. It was a flash of light - then poof! It was gone.